News Singled Out: Top Five (9th February 2012)

I like to buy music that I can hold in my hand. I still buy CDs. I still buy vinyl. I still buy cassettes if there’s no option of another format (I get that it’s ‘DIY’ an’ all, but the sound quality of tapes just gives me aural hallucinations of the times my childhood friend, the Sony Walkman, chewed up my favourite albums and it makes me shudder.) Buying things from iTunes makes me feel a little bit sad, and this geekiness is why I do a show where I only play physical releases, largely things you stick a needle on at 45rpm. [But I’ll play a CD if I really like it, because vinyl can be well expensive for super tiny indie labels to press.]

There’s a mind-boggling amount of music freely available on t’internet, both legally and, er, less legally, and I feel like listening to 7’ singles is a kind of celebration of the value and importance of the music you like. Think about it. You spend about a fiver on a record with (usually) two tracks on it, and a beautifully designed cardboard sleeve. To play it, you have to carefully slide the vinyl from its casing, manoeuvre it onto your turntable, and lift the arm to let the needle fall into the groove of the first track. Your attention is devoted to the record right from the off. Don’t get me wrong, I love a free download as much as the next woman, but unarchiving a zip file and dragging it from the downloads folder into iTunes is a marginally less romantic process.

Anyway, after we’ve let that waffle serve as an introduction to this - my five favourite physical releases of the fortnight #phew.

5. ANGO - Better For YouTaken from the brand new debut EP ‘Another City Now’ by Montreal native Andrew Gordon Macpherson and it’s out on 12’ on Lucky Me. He’s previously collaborated with fellow Canadians Lunice and Jacques Greene, as well as lady of the moment Azealia Banks. What I like about this track (in layman’s terms, which is the only way I’m ever capable of talking about anything vaguely electronic) is the contrast between the glacially cool and sparse backing, and Macpherson’s beseeching lyrics and pleading vocals.



4. Dan Sartain - Now Now NowFeaturing Jane Wiedlin, formerly of the Go-Gos, on joint vocal duties, this is a raucous retro stomp of a single, clocking in at a mere 1.22, and out on 7’ on One Little Indian.

3. Fair Ohs - Salt FlatsAnother great joy about buying physical singles is the novelty factor. Labels and bands know that a gimmick, coupled with an excellent piece of music of course, is a great way to shift records. Here, East Londoners Fair Ohs are releasing the track on ‘flexi-postcard’, perhaps the very first (almost) postable record. Or spinnable postcard, one of the two. There is a disclaimer that sound quality might be affected so a free download is available to buyers of the record to make up for that. ‘Let yourself be overwhelmed’, say Fair Ohs; ‘Amen’, say I. Out on the aforementioned flexi-postcard format on X-Ray Recordings. Here’s the boys performing this very track for this very website.



2. Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny - Sweet Tooth Bird Geordie lass and, slightly incredibly Anthony Kiedis’s better half. Knows how to use a horn section (oo-er). Lovely, and out on 7’ on Mute Records



1. Amateur Best - Be Happy/The Wave My favourite and possible the most intriguing release I’ve heard this fortnight. The brainchild of Joe Flory, formerly Primary 1, Amateur Best is a kind of a concept thing, based on a fictional character called James Best: ‘DJ, latent alcoholic and lifelong amateur.’ There’s even a series of comic books chronicling Best’s japes. It’s out on 7’ on the excellent Double Denim.